Fr. Michael Carlini, SX
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
With the 3rd Sunday in ordinary time C, we begin the almost continuous reading of the Gospel of Luke, which will accompany us throughout the year 2016 until Advent. This concludes the entire liturgical cycle that extends for three years. In other words: who attends the Sunday liturgy for three years in a row (A-B-C), listens to the entire Bible, at least in its essential parts.
Thus we become like the people of God in the First Reading: after the exile in the foreign land of Babylon, the Bible was proclaimed to the assembly, gathered in front of the reconstructed Temple of Jerusalem. The people were all in tears as they listened to the words of the Law.
By reading the whole Bible during the three years, we have a complete overview of revelation: as Christians we are linked to the history of Israel (the first Reading of every Sunday). We interpret the First Testament as an ongoing project of the one God who called the people of Israel and today calls the Church to bring it to completion.
Christ, in the synagogue of his town Nazareth, reads to his fellow citizens the scroll of Isaiah, which speaks of the Year of the Lord’s favour. Fr. Patrick, in last Sundays’ Comment on this web page, mentioned the opening of the Jubilee Year in this country. How can we make this 2016 a blessed year? We are all missionaries, you and I, therefore our assignment is us proclaim to our neighbours that this is a favourable year. Let us spread this encouraging news!
In the first reading the Israelites were in tears as the Bible was being read. Why? All of them were just back from the exile in Babylon, where they had to learn the language of the economical power of that time, Aramaic, and as a consequence forgot their native idiom. Therefore the scribes were translating the original Hebrew text of the Bible to them into Aramaic, the idiom they were familiar with.
One of my great joys in Sierra Leone is when we travel with our portable generator to the rural areas, to show the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” to the people. When night falls, we project the film on a white wall of one of those houses. The Salesians working here dubbed the original English dialogues on the dvd in the “lingua franca” of Sierra Leone that is spoken by everybody here, that is “Krio”. As the movie begins, all the people present are so happy to hear all the protagonists of the Gospel speak in their own language! Exactly as Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “This text is being fulfilled today in your ears” (Lk 4:21).
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
With the 3rd Sunday in ordinary time C, we begin the almost continuous reading of the Gospel of Luke, which will accompany us throughout the year 2016 until Advent. This concludes the entire liturgical cycle that extends for three years. In other words: who attends the Sunday liturgy for three years in a row (A-B-C), listens to the entire Bible, at least in its essential parts.
Thus we become like the people of God in the First Reading: after the exile in the foreign land of Babylon, the Bible was proclaimed to the assembly, gathered in front of the reconstructed Temple of Jerusalem. The people were all in tears as they listened to the words of the Law.
By reading the whole Bible during the three years, we have a complete overview of revelation: as Christians we are linked to the history of Israel (the first Reading of every Sunday). We interpret the First Testament as an ongoing project of the one God who called the people of Israel and today calls the Church to bring it to completion.
Christ, in the synagogue of his town Nazareth, reads to his fellow citizens the scroll of Isaiah, which speaks of the Year of the Lord’s favour. Fr. Patrick, in last Sundays’ Comment on this web page, mentioned the opening of the Jubilee Year in this country. How can we make this 2016 a blessed year? We are all missionaries, you and I, therefore our assignment is us proclaim to our neighbours that this is a favourable year. Let us spread this encouraging news!
In the first reading the Israelites were in tears as the Bible was being read. Why? All of them were just back from the exile in Babylon, where they had to learn the language of the economical power of that time, Aramaic, and as a consequence forgot their native idiom. Therefore the scribes were translating the original Hebrew text of the Bible to them into Aramaic, the idiom they were familiar with.
One of my great joys in Sierra Leone is when we travel with our portable generator to the rural areas, to show the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” to the people. When night falls, we project the film on a white wall of one of those houses. The Salesians working here dubbed the original English dialogues on the dvd in the “lingua franca” of Sierra Leone that is spoken by everybody here, that is “Krio”. As the movie begins, all the people present are so happy to hear all the protagonists of the Gospel speak in their own language! Exactly as Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “This text is being fulfilled today in your ears” (Lk 4:21).